Waverley sent him to the anteroom, locked the door, and turned to Doris.
“I’m terribly sorry about this,” he said, “but I’m sure we can resublimate him. It shouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Oh, it shouldn’t?” Doris asked.
“No.” Waverley said with confidence he didn’t feel. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Fine,” Doris said. She put the psi’s papers in an ashtray, found a match, and burned them. “Until you do, I think we had better postpone the wedding.”
“But why?”
“Oh, Sam,” Doris said, “how can I marry you and know that slimy little thing is watching every move we make? And writing it all down?”
“Now calm down,” Waverley said uncomfortably. “You’re perfectly right. I’ll go to work on him. Perhaps you’d better take the rest of the day off.”
“I’m going to,” Doris said, and started for the door.
“Supper this evening?” Waverley asked her.
“No,” she said firmly. “I’m sorry, Sam, but one thing’ll lead to another, and not while that Peeping Tom is loose.” She slammed the door shut.
Waverley unlocked the anteroom door.
“Come in here, Sidney,” he said. “You and I are going to have a fine long talk.”
Waverley tried to explain, slowly and patiently, that what Eskin did wasn’t truly scientific. He tried to show that it was a sexual deviation or overintensification, rationalized as a scientific motive.
“But, Mr. Waverley,” Eskin said, “if I was just peeking at people, that would be one thing. But I write it all down, I use the correct terms; I classify and define. I hope to write a definitive work on the sexual habits of every human being in the world.”
Waverley explained that people have a right to personal privacy. Eskin replied that science came above petty squeamishness. Waverley tried to batter at his fortifications for the rest of the day. But Eskin had an answer for everything, an answer that fit completely into his view of himself and the world.
“The trouble is,” he told Waverley, “people aren’t scientific. Not even scientists. Would you believe it, in the sanitarium the doctors kept me locked in solitary most of the time. Just because I observed and wrote down their sexual habits at home? Of course, being in solitary couldn’t stop me.”
Waverley wondered how Eskin had lived as long as he had. It would have been small wonder if an irate doctor slipped him an overdose of something. It probably required strong self-discipline not to.
“I didn’t think that you were against me,” the psi said sorrowfully. “I didn’t realize that you were so old-fashioned.”
“I’m not against you,” Waverley said, trying to think of some way of dealing with the man. Then, in a sudden happy burst of inspiration, he had it.
“Sidney,” he said, “I think I know of a job for you. A nice job, one you’ll like.”
“Really?” the voyeur said, his face lighting up.
“I think so,” Waverley said. He checked the idea in a recent magazine, located a telephone number, and dialed.
“Hello? Is this the Bellen Foundation?” He introduced himself, making sure they knew who he was. “I hear that you gentlemen are engaged in a new survey on the sexual habits of males of Eastern Patagonian descent. Would you be interested in an interviewer who can really get the facts?”
After a few more minutes of conversation, Waverley hung up and wrote out the address. “Go right over, Sid,” he said. “I think we have found your niche in life.”
“Thank you very much,” the psychotic said, and hurried out.
The next morning Waverley’s first appointment was with Bill Symes, one of Waverley’s brightest hopes, Symes had a fine psi talent in a clear, intelligent mind.
This morning he looked confused and unhappy.
“I wanted to speak to you first, Sam,” Symes said. “I’m leaving my job.”
“Why?” Waverley wanted to know. He had thought that Symes was as well placed and happy as a psi could be.
“Well—I just don’t fit in.”
Symes was able to “feel” stresses and strains in metal. Like most psis, he didn’t know how he did it. Nevertheless, Symes was able to “sense” microshrinkage and porosity faster, and more accurately than an X-ray machine, and with none of the problems of interpretation that an X-ray inspection leaves.
Symes’s talent was on an all-or-nothing basis; either he could do it or he couldn’t. Therefore he didn’t make mistakes. Even though his talent completely shut off forty percent of the time, he was still a valuable asset in the aircraft-engine industry, where every part must be X-rayed for possible flaws.
“What do you mean, you do not fit in?” Waverley asked. “Don’t you think you’re worth the money you’re getting?”
“It’s not that,” Symes said. “It’s the guys I work with. They think I’m a freak.”
“You knew that when you started,” Waverley reminded him.
Symes shrugged. “All right, Sam. Let me put it this way.” He lighted a cigarette. “What in hell am I? What are any of us psis? We can do something, but we don’t know how we do it. We have no control over it, no insight into it. Either it’s there or it isn’t. We’re not supermen, but we’re also not normal human beings. We’re—I don’t know what we are.”
“Bill,” Waverley said softly. “It’s not the other men worrying you. It’s you. You are starting to think you’re a freak.”
“Neither fish nor fowl,” Symes quoted, “nor good red meat. I’m going to take up dirt farming, Sam.”
Waverley shook his head. Psis were easily discouraged from trying to get their talents out of the parlor-trick stage. The commercial world was built—theoretically—along the lines of one-hundred percent function. A machine that didn’t work all the time was considered useless. A carry-over of that attitude was present in the psis, who considered their talents a mechanical extension of themselves, instead of an integral part. They felt inferior if they couldn’t produce with machinelike regularity.
Waverley didn’t know what to do. Psis would have to find themselves, true. But not by retreating to the farms.
“Look, Sam,” Symes said. “I know how much psi means to you. But I’ve got a right to some normality also. I’m sorry.”
“All right, Bill,” Waverley said, realizing that any more arguments would just antagonize Symes. Besides, he knew that psis were hams, too. They liked to do their tricks. Perhaps a dose of dirt-farming would send Bill back to his real work.
“Keep in touch with me, will you?”
“Sure. So long, Sam.”
Waverley frowned, chewed his lip for a few moments, then went in to see Doris.
“Marriage date back on?” he asked her.
“How about Eskin?”
He told her about Eskin’s new job, and the date was set for the following week. That evening they had supper together in a cozy little restaurant. Later they returned to Doris’s apartment to resume their practice of ignoring television.
The next morning, while leafing through his magazines, Waverley had a sudden idea. He called Emma Cranick at once and told her to come over.
“How do you feel about traveling?” he asked the girl. “Do you enjoy seeing new places?”
“Oh, I do,” Emma said. “This is the first time I’ve been off my uncle’s farm.”
“Do you mind hardships? Bitter cold?”
“I’m never cold,” she told him. “I can warm myself, just like I can start fires.”
“Fine,” Waverley said. “It’s just possible…”
He got on the telephone. In fifteen minutes he had made an appointment for the poltergeist girl.
“Emma,” he said, “have you ever heard of the Harkins expedition?”
“No,” she said. “Why?”
“Well, they’re going to the Antarctic. One of the problems of an expedition of that sort is heat for emergencies. Do you understand?”